Just a few of my brief thoughts...

I think the quality of tailoring is declining in England and probably in the U.S as well. There's just a smaller pool of talent to pick from these days, nobody wants to learn to be a tailor in England, therefore as the older tailors retire or die there's no flesh blood coming through to replace them. Also this smaller pool of talent means that tailors who would not have got work before due too poor workmanship now get work because there's no one else to do it. I should imagine the situation is similar in the U.S as well. When one hears on the fora about great tailors in the U.S they always seem to be Italian emigres and of advanced years.

I think the same will happen in Italy also, I just think there just a little behind on the curve that's all, but, it will happen and soon.

There is also problems inherent in the travelling tailor business model. Tailoring is by it's nature highly personal, and I don't think that level of relationship can be can be cultivated successfully by a travelling tailor regardless of how good s/he is, there's just too much than can go wrong and the temptations to take short cuts to expedite the suit along, too great.

I also think the problem lies with some clients as well. Just perusing the forums recently there seems to be some customers who don't know what the f**k they want. You can identify these customers as the ones who flit from tailor to tailor and are never satisfied with anything they receive, then they bad mouth the tailors they've used. These clients would be better buying high branded RTW and getting a good alterations tailor to tweak the fit and leaving bespoke alone. Bespoke is not for everyone.

Maybe, men that are considering bespoke for the first time would be better served using a tailor who has a definite style for their first few suits, as I don't think they have the experience to work with a more flexible tailor because increased flexibility can require increased customer input for optimum results, and these men lack the experience and language to give that input so they end up with the proverbial sack of sh*t. Great results can be had with these tailors but at potentially greater risk.

Great tailoring can be had on the Row, but you may have to be just more demanding that you thought. This unfortunately doesn't suit (pun intended) some men's personality though.

To sum up. There are bad tailors everywhere, however, there are even more 'bad' customers.

Last edited by formby (2009-01-10 06:09:53)